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Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasure: My friends and I like to insert "bro" into random words like Brototype, Broseph Stalin and Bromar Garciaparra.

This will probably be the most embarrassing blog post ever.

Let’s be honest with each other. We ALL like somethings out there that could be considered cheesy, lame, gay (that one’s for you homophobes out there) or just straight retarded (that one’s for you haterz).

Last summer, I fell in love with the Mamma Mia! Soundtrack. I always played it during my shifts at Barnes & Noble. As much as Pierce Brosnan tried to destroy that movie with his voice which sounded like a bag full of ferrets fighting for air, I love the shit out of that soundtrack, and in turn found my love of ABBA. I knew I liked ABBA before. I knew all the words to “Dancing Queen” growing up for no fucking reason. My mother grew suspicious. As you go through that soundtrack, you find yourself knowing more and more songs. ABBA Gold is the shit. If anyone wants to say any different, TRY to prove me wrong. C’mon, take a chance.

New Found Glory is another musical guilty pleasure. Actually, I take that back. Bad pop punk in general is a guilty pleasure. I’d rather listen to Midtown‘s Living Well is the Best Revenge over The Get Up Kid’s Something to Write Home Aboutsometimes. It doesn’t make any sense. I love Bowling for Soup, Blink-182, The Ataris and so on. For some reason, it’s the last thing I’ll mention when someone asks about what I listen to. Punk was such an important part of my life, but I feel ashamed to talk about it because of the ideas people will get about me–immature, loves Mark Hoppus. I try to validate that by stating my love for swing, big band jazz and bebop. To people who know me well, it’s obvious what I would pick to listen to between Louder Now by Taking Back Sunday and Dave Brubeck‘s Time Out.

This might come as a shock, but I also LOVE Pride and Prejudice. (WOW, it took me a while to type that sentence out) I love both book and BBC versions. Colin Firth is more man than I’ll ever be. I’m sure, if given the chance to read it, I would love Pride and Prejudice and Zombieswritten by Seth Grahame-Smith. Jane Austen’s book is the only piece of classic literature worth reading in my opinion. Yeah, I said it. We all know Faust is for pussies, and that Moby Dick is for people with too much time on their hands. Nineteenth Century Britain is where it’s at people!

I can appreciate good cinema. I like my fair share of “good” movies. But, I get the greatest joy from watching awful movies. This could probably be attributed to my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000 growing up. I recently got back into watching these gems like Manos: The Hands of Fate and Catalina Caper. I also grew up watching movies on UPN 20 and WB 39 in Houston. Their library of Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jackie Chan movies is something to be admired and feared. Universal Soldier is pretty much the best movie of our time. JCVD AND Dolph Lundgren?! Get out! Pick any day of the week and I will rather watch Glimmer Manover Casablanca. He cuts open a dude’s throat with a CREDIT CARD!

My greatest guilty pleasure might be 80s Hair Metal. Yeah. That’s right. No one banged harder than Ratt, Whitesnake, Def Leppard or Poison. The video for “Dr. Feelgood” changed my life. I have pretty fond memories tied to “Here I Go Again“. Although released in the 90s, Extreme’s “More Than Words” is the fourth greatest love song of all time, behind #1 Master P’s “I Got the Hook Up” and #2 Method Man ft. Mary J. Blige “You’re All I Need to Get By” which is tied with R. Kelly’s “Feelin’ On Yo’ Booty”. I don’t think I could go through an entire listening of Def Leppard’s Pyromaniac without air-guitaring my back out.

In the end, who can say what is good or bad? I can’t trust popular opinion. I lost faith in that when America re-elected Bush. Taste is all relative to one’s own beliefs about what is considered artistic and valid. This being said, I still think I have awful taste in comparison to everyone else. While everyone was probably watching 500 Days of Summer this week. I was watching Punisher: War Zone at home with my roommate Aaron.

I think a lot people in Austin are quick to state that they like something ironically. I hear that way too often. I blame it on the ever-increasing hipster population that is getting out of control in this town. When I moved here five years ago, I was more concerned with hippie body odor. Not any more. Dare I say it, I miss it.

People are too ready to poke fun at something that they feel is beneath them. I wish I had the guts to go out there and try to create. It’s a bravery that I don’t have. And, as awful as something may turn out, at least there was an effort to do something outside a comfort zone that practically the majority of humanity live in. It took me a long time to appreciate people’s effort and look past the ends of their attempts. As much as I might not like something, I can appreciate someone for trying to create.